The design of this building carried a set of particular constraints that set a sharp limit on any ambition: the need to respect the municipal restrictions over one part of the site (a maximum of five storeys over a lightwell basement, and a two-metre projection rule); and the high-rise regulations applicable over another part. Buildability, structural soundness, economy, and attention to the users and visitors of the building — in which, naturally, identity, approachability, modesty, simplicity, and an absence of ostentation had to be observed — and, functionally, the diplomats' meeting space and their public contact had to be among those constraints too.
Given the configuration of the site and the views that existed from within towards the urban landscape, and from the urban axes towards the building, the design takes inspiration from the classical masses of a citadel that resolves into a clay-brick tower, divided by parallel horizontal lines. These lines, in the design, turn into tall, deeper cuts that generate the transparent parts — the windows. The design, in other words, emerges from the combination of a long, tall citadel linked to its urban situation and views, with a middle tower scooped out: at the ground and first floors, an enclosed public space arises; stairs rise from within it to the upper storeys, and wide recesses bring light inside in an alternating rhythm — so that the "emptying of earth by light," which belongs to the architecture of this land, can be displayed once again.
